I've been playing Starmade on and off for years now. Currently, I'm on my longest stint yet after I discovered that the Server Browser was a thing.
In any case, I've been doing a significant amount of building, and there's several things that bug me...so, after browsing through the last couple of months' worth of suggestions (to make sure that I'm not beating a dead horse I didn't know existed,) I've come up with a list of things that I'd like to see addressed. I know that the game is in alpha, and that it's still in development, so I'm not pushing for any of these or anything. I'll still play whether or not my suggestions are even looked at.
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1. High-Contrast or something to this effect.
I know it's been suggested before, but sometimes, it's really hard to see what I'm doing. I'm not sure how this could be fixed, other than a texture pack...but what if there was a separate texture pack built-in for building?
- Extremely simplistic, non-animated textures that have clear edges and faces. Each edge could be outlined, and the wedge-side of wedges and such could be the opposite color of whatever it is you're placing.
- Alternating block colors. No idea if this could be done, but would it be possible to have a mode with alternate block colors in a checkerboard-sort of way? Not quite sure how to explain my thinking on this one.
2. Arrow-key copy/paste system. Just adding my two cents here, I think the suggestions on this are amazing. If nothing else, being able to rotate the selection box (or even the normal block-placing area) would be really nice, so less scaffolding is necessary.
- Stacking option. I got this idea from the Stacking tool from Garry's Mod. I've got even less of an idea of how to implement this, but it's basically some kind of simplistic copy/paste system that only does one thing: Stacks. You select your area, and it can stack the area in a direction you've specified, with offsets and angles.
I guess this wouldn't be necessary if copy/paste mode is improved, though.
3. Bigger build dimensions, but limited by block count. The default block-placing is limited to 10. Some servers have increased it to greater dimensions (the one I play on does 51x51x51). I'd like to see this number increased even further, for when I'm making big things, but this would also cause much more lag. Placing a million blocks at once kinda tends to eat my computer.
That being said, maybe the sliders have a maximum total volume that they can place. Each slider goes up to...say, 200, but once you've reached a certain threshold, the other sliders start going down or something.
4. Minecraft-like movement acceleration/deceleration. Not really sure how else to explain this one, but here I go:
In Minecraft, you hold W, and there's a (very) small amount of time where your speed is increased from zero to maximum walking. By tapping the key, you move very small distances, because you haven't gotten up to full speed. In Starmade, the moment you push the button, you're at full speed. There's no precision movement, so to speak. This sometimes makes moving (especially in build mode) difficult, as you're limited to bursts of speed, instead of accelerating.
Not sure I explained it properly, but I'd like to see finer movement control of some kind.
Or, perhaps a block-relative movement? Once it's toggled, you move a single block per push of the button. Holding shift increases this by a settable amount, probably by another slider.
On further thought while typing this, I also came up with another thought: Build Mode waypoints. You save a block as a waypoint, and you can teleport back to this area via a pop-up menu or something, like the Tab menu. Again, only in build-mode, though having a visual indicator floating around for what areas of the ship are what might be nice outside of it. I've heard that ship-areas are planned, though.
5. Better indicator for selected blocks. I've had some trouble telling which blocks I've got linked to other blocks on occasion. Flashing box-sized indicator is nice, but the more boxes you have selected, the harder it is to tell, especially in checkerboard patterns of modules, such as salvagers. Plus, with large groups of modules, the lag goes up significantly when it has to display all the flashing boxes.
Would it be possible to change the "selected thing" flashing indicator to a solid box, or maybe just an outline of the group, so it's easier to tell what is and what isn't linked?
6. Alternate textures for certain blocks This one's just kind of a wish, but I'll ask for it in here anyway: Alternate textures for certain materials. I really like the repeating texture of armor and the outlined panels of hull, but I'd rather not put armor on my ships just to get this effect. Maybe a slider for which texture you want to use for a block? Though this might make things even more complicated than they already are.
7. Chat fixes
- Messages about players that are entering/Leaving server show up in red, but only when the chat window isn't open. It'd be nice to be able to more clearly see who left/entered in the past little bit. Green could be Joined notifications, and Red could be Left? I dunno.
- PMs. I dunno if this is just me, but PMs show up in the general chat window, even though they're not visible to anyone but me. Really annoying, especially when I've got a separate window pinned to the HUD anyway for them.
- Font Size/Font. I've got a 2k monitor. I know that's not a normal thing, that most people have smaller monitors. But it's really hard to read the chat when it's so tiny. The Build Mode info box has increase/decrease font size, why doesn't the chat?
- Notification sounds would be nice, along with a notification log that stores the last 20 or so notifications that popped up.
- Timestamps in the chat would be nice.
8. Build-mode info box formatting. I know I just mentioned this text box, but having all of the stats crammed together is hard to read.
10. Some way to deal with arrows everywhere. I know the HUD is being worked on, and it looks miles better than it did before. But seeing arrows everywhere (especially in build mode, when I don't particularly care about what's outside my ship) gets tedious, especially when there's lots of ships/docked stuff/etc. I'm aware there are some filters, but I'd like to see filters like "Faction Ships" and "Alliance Ships" and such, along with sound effects for when someone hostile is in the vicinity. Jumping into an area with pirates is not fun (unless you did it on purpose), but it's even less not-fun if the only way I've noticed that hostiles are near me is the sudden BOOM of a missile blowing a hole in my miner.
11. More blocks: I've seen a few threads about wanting an inverted(?) corner, but there's been a few times that I really wanted another shape. My descriptive skills are lacking, and some of these are really situational, but I'll try to explain anyway:
- A rectangular-pyramid-shaped block, as the top point of...er...a pyramid-shaped object.
- A V-shaped block (kind of like two wedges facing each other, but in one block), and the oppositelike two wedges back-to-back, again, in a single block. Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to do this without also eventually introducing quarter-wedges and quarter-tetras and stuff.
- A way to dynamically combine two colors of block into one, for lettering and decoration. Not officially combining two blocks into one (I think that suggestion's been turned down a few times), but just the textures, such as two different colors of slabs, or two wedges smooshed together, so you've got a box with two different colored triangles on it. Maybe said box would just be kind of like a display block, except different sides are programmable with different combinations of blocks.
Anyway, thanks for reading all of this, and sorry for the rambling. I fully support whatever direction/features/etc Schine decides to do.
EDIT: Forgot one more thing. A Pick Block key (switches the block you've got in your hotbar for the stack of the one you're looking at, and perhaps a "copy angle of block you're looking at" key to go with it?
In any case, I've been doing a significant amount of building, and there's several things that bug me...so, after browsing through the last couple of months' worth of suggestions (to make sure that I'm not beating a dead horse I didn't know existed,) I've come up with a list of things that I'd like to see addressed. I know that the game is in alpha, and that it's still in development, so I'm not pushing for any of these or anything. I'll still play whether or not my suggestions are even looked at.
)1. High-Contrast or something to this effect.
I know it's been suggested before, but sometimes, it's really hard to see what I'm doing. I'm not sure how this could be fixed, other than a texture pack...but what if there was a separate texture pack built-in for building?
- Extremely simplistic, non-animated textures that have clear edges and faces. Each edge could be outlined, and the wedge-side of wedges and such could be the opposite color of whatever it is you're placing.
- Alternating block colors. No idea if this could be done, but would it be possible to have a mode with alternate block colors in a checkerboard-sort of way? Not quite sure how to explain my thinking on this one.
2. Arrow-key copy/paste system. Just adding my two cents here, I think the suggestions on this are amazing. If nothing else, being able to rotate the selection box (or even the normal block-placing area) would be really nice, so less scaffolding is necessary.
- Stacking option. I got this idea from the Stacking tool from Garry's Mod. I've got even less of an idea of how to implement this, but it's basically some kind of simplistic copy/paste system that only does one thing: Stacks. You select your area, and it can stack the area in a direction you've specified, with offsets and angles.
I guess this wouldn't be necessary if copy/paste mode is improved, though.
3. Bigger build dimensions, but limited by block count. The default block-placing is limited to 10. Some servers have increased it to greater dimensions (the one I play on does 51x51x51). I'd like to see this number increased even further, for when I'm making big things, but this would also cause much more lag. Placing a million blocks at once kinda tends to eat my computer.
That being said, maybe the sliders have a maximum total volume that they can place. Each slider goes up to...say, 200, but once you've reached a certain threshold, the other sliders start going down or something.
4. Minecraft-like movement acceleration/deceleration. Not really sure how else to explain this one, but here I go:
In Minecraft, you hold W, and there's a (very) small amount of time where your speed is increased from zero to maximum walking. By tapping the key, you move very small distances, because you haven't gotten up to full speed. In Starmade, the moment you push the button, you're at full speed. There's no precision movement, so to speak. This sometimes makes moving (especially in build mode) difficult, as you're limited to bursts of speed, instead of accelerating.
Not sure I explained it properly, but I'd like to see finer movement control of some kind.
Or, perhaps a block-relative movement? Once it's toggled, you move a single block per push of the button. Holding shift increases this by a settable amount, probably by another slider.
On further thought while typing this, I also came up with another thought: Build Mode waypoints. You save a block as a waypoint, and you can teleport back to this area via a pop-up menu or something, like the Tab menu. Again, only in build-mode, though having a visual indicator floating around for what areas of the ship are what might be nice outside of it. I've heard that ship-areas are planned, though.
5. Better indicator for selected blocks. I've had some trouble telling which blocks I've got linked to other blocks on occasion. Flashing box-sized indicator is nice, but the more boxes you have selected, the harder it is to tell, especially in checkerboard patterns of modules, such as salvagers. Plus, with large groups of modules, the lag goes up significantly when it has to display all the flashing boxes.
Would it be possible to change the "selected thing" flashing indicator to a solid box, or maybe just an outline of the group, so it's easier to tell what is and what isn't linked?
6. Alternate textures for certain blocks This one's just kind of a wish, but I'll ask for it in here anyway: Alternate textures for certain materials. I really like the repeating texture of armor and the outlined panels of hull, but I'd rather not put armor on my ships just to get this effect. Maybe a slider for which texture you want to use for a block? Though this might make things even more complicated than they already are.
7. Chat fixes
- Messages about players that are entering/Leaving server show up in red, but only when the chat window isn't open. It'd be nice to be able to more clearly see who left/entered in the past little bit. Green could be Joined notifications, and Red could be Left? I dunno.
- PMs. I dunno if this is just me, but PMs show up in the general chat window, even though they're not visible to anyone but me. Really annoying, especially when I've got a separate window pinned to the HUD anyway for them.
- Font Size/Font. I've got a 2k monitor. I know that's not a normal thing, that most people have smaller monitors. But it's really hard to read the chat when it's so tiny.
The Build Mode info box has increase/decrease font size, why doesn't the chat? - Notification sounds would be nice, along with a notification log that stores the last 20 or so notifications that popped up.
- Timestamps in the chat would be nice.
8. Build-mode info box formatting. I know I just mentioned this text box, but having all of the stats crammed together is hard to read.
10. Some way to deal with arrows everywhere. I know the HUD is being worked on, and it looks miles better than it did before. But seeing arrows everywhere (especially in build mode, when I don't particularly care about what's outside my ship) gets tedious, especially when there's lots of ships/docked stuff/etc. I'm aware there are some filters, but I'd like to see filters like "Faction Ships" and "Alliance Ships" and such, along with sound effects for when someone hostile is in the vicinity. Jumping into an area with pirates is not fun (unless you did it on purpose), but it's even less not-fun if the only way I've noticed that hostiles are near me is the sudden BOOM of a missile blowing a hole in my miner.
11. More blocks: I've seen a few threads about wanting an inverted(?) corner, but there's been a few times that I really wanted another shape. My descriptive skills are lacking, and some of these are really situational, but I'll try to explain anyway:
- A rectangular-pyramid-shaped block, as the top point of...er...a pyramid-shaped object.
- A V-shaped block (kind of like two wedges facing each other, but in one block), and the oppositelike two wedges back-to-back, again, in a single block. Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to do this without also eventually introducing quarter-wedges and quarter-tetras and stuff.
- A way to dynamically combine two colors of block into one, for lettering and decoration. Not officially combining two blocks into one (I think that suggestion's been turned down a few times), but just the textures, such as two different colors of slabs, or two wedges smooshed together, so you've got a box with two different colored triangles on it. Maybe said box would just be kind of like a display block, except different sides are programmable with different combinations of blocks.
Anyway, thanks for reading all of this, and sorry for the rambling. I fully support whatever direction/features/etc Schine decides to do.
EDIT: Forgot one more thing. A Pick Block key (switches the block you've got in your hotbar for the stack of the one you're looking at, and perhaps a "copy angle of block you're looking at" key to go with it?
